We have two wingers who iffit then should be in the team both Evans and Russel have missed opportunities Lyneham and penny would probably converted to points.

Ratcheted... Whilst a good player is a luxury we cannot afford were constantly trying to find a place for him in the team. If one player has a bad game he is replaced by ratch, cannot be good in the long run given Evans offers little going forward nuking looks like he has some way to go centre Is the most logical I'd like to see him inside Lyneham n see if they can build a partnership.

8 days ago everybody was happy with the team. Now a few idiots not only want to change the wingers about but the whole back line. Only Atkins & Sandow remain. How long will it take before the Atkins bashers start up.

I was in the East for this so saw it at a different perspective than I usually do.
Evans isn't a winger, he's making decisions based on being a centre and his mind set isn't right. Get him back at centre, Penny is fit, so what's happening there?
Lineham, cut their losses and get rid,simple I don't want to see him in a Wire shirt again.
Toby King looked like a boy who won a competition out the crowd to play, woeful.
Ratchford looked out of position permanently.
The passing was slow, obvious, easy to defend and that's at the few times we did decide to spread it.
We had sets in which it was simply, 1st tackle, half ar$ed Ratchford kick return, dummy half scoot, dummy half scoot, dummy half scoot, dummy half scoot, aimless bomb. Bloody awful to watch, I left on the 69 minute mark it was so bad to watch, I was bored to tears.

To be fair I don't really even want Evans at centre. I want us to go back to what was working at the start of the season if anything. I think Tom Lyneham will be given next season with potentially a new centre to play with. He has time to turn things around tho that time is running out.

I think it's widely accepted that both penny and tow would have scored a few of the opportunities that Russell n Evans have missed. Not all but some of them.

You pay your money, it's your prerogative to leave when you see fit, but leaving after 69 minutes with the game in the balance? Would it have been so hard to stay another eleven minutes and get behind the team when they need a lift?

I have no voice at the moment...genuinely I can't raise it above a quiet tone.
Me staying/going makes no difference, the players were indifferent and so was I.
I go to be entertained, it was awful, I'm surprised I stayed as long as I did.

I might have gone had the scores been the other way round too, I was just frustrated with the whole thing, dreadful game.

Ratchfords attempts at collecting kicks and actually speed of thought to collect the kicks was poor. We cant have him at stand off if we play Sandow as that would be two players playing off the cuff.

Evans as has been stated is not a winger, our first choice are both deemed by the coach as unfit at the minute, whether this is true or its down to their joint efforts of "burning the midnight oil", TS feels he is not in a position to play them.

I do think if we were making do, a game or two with Atkins on the wing and Evans inside him with Ratchford the other centre inside Russell thus allowing Jack Johnson a go at the big time, he seemed to do ok last time

A) no hard yards? behave. Penny does nothing but take balls up the middle in our own half and more often than not runs harder than most forwards.
B) hasn't dropped a high ball all season.
c) has made countless long range runs as well as breaks and half breaks every game he plays.

I'm wondering who you actually watch when you thing you're watching Penny?



I also don't get everyone's obsession with Russell at FB? Can't catch, can't pass, can't chime into the line, positioning is woeful...

but that's ok.. Because he can return a ball ded fast. Have a word with yourselves.

Ratchford...I'm inclined to keep him at the back, he's great under the high kicks and generally very composed, just zero urgency returning it.
Russell just a pity he isn't a bit bigger, if he was he'd be an ideal forward.
Get Penny back on the wing and leave Evans in the centre.

Sometimes I wonder what Smiths plan is. Playing players out of position to accommodate certain others. We seem to have too many brains in the team. Gidley, Sandow, Ratch, Clark, Dwyer and Westerman. There you have 5 out of 6 blokes who are all on the field at the same time (all 6 when Smith decides to play with two hookers.) who all play in a pivotal position and could all play 6 or 7 if push really came to shove.

Ideally you want 4 brains. 9, 6, 7 and 1. Sometimes you get the feel that instead of your 9 directing you to a channel and working it we instead have a load of players who all want their hands on the ball looking to give that miracle pass. We look as though we want to score on every play. What's wrong with settling into an area and kicking well with a good chase? Building pressure then setting something up. At the start of the season we had structure in our attack, now it looks as though the coaching staff just say 'go out and do what you want'

You just about get away with that against lower teams, you have no chance against the teams like Wigan and Saints.

Saints beat us on Friday with basic rugby,simple plays & supporting the ball carrier & more accurate kicking from Walsh.


We could have 13 individual superstars on the pitch but it wouldn't mean they could beat a well drilled mediocre side that played as a team.

Spot on as far as Penny and Russell are concerned sorry Matty you need to be doing more and I cant see where you will do it

Sorry but have to disagree with the majority on here about Matty Russell. He is crucial to the way we play and that means fast plays at dummy half which is our best way of defeating Hull in the Final to keep their big pack on the back foot. His best position is full back where he is consistently one of our best metre makers. Ratchford to centre and Lineham and Penny on the wings to support the full back.
Clark, Dwyer, Russell and Ratchford and fast play the ball is our best option.
Also need to see a lot more of Ben Currie who has been quiet recently - need to see him taking more ball and dominating in the way Jack Hughes is doing.

This ^^^

Fast play the balls i.e. one up rugby.

I hate this style we've adopted of late, I want expansive stuff at pace, not Brian '5DAAK' Noble rugby.

If I wanted to watch mindnumbing tedious rugby I could go to the DW for that

Russell as FB is a no from me. Too tiny regardless of how many metre on ball return.

To some extent I agree with you 49er (and Dessie) but this is an ideal world, a world where Russell can actually catch a ball kicked up in the air and Lineham can actually be bothered to put a shift in, a world that we are currently not operating in.

Does size matter? I know that it does to some extent and you've used the argument about a good big v a good little un etc but Russell's problem isn't his size for me, apparently he's bigger than Hodgson, it's his ability and or confidence in his ability.

He's still relatively young, but, he's not looked the same since he took that hit against Widnes, in fact of all the teams he seems to struggle against Widnes in particular. It's not that they have found a magic formula, just kick it in the air seems to spread panic, so much so that this year's trip to Widnes had him swapping positions with Johnson attack and defence and if Widnes can do it do we not think that the likes of Sneyd will have a go at Wembley?

Add to this Lineham's lack of mobility on the turn or lack of effort depending upon your viewpoint and it wouldn't be too difficult to come up with an attacking kicking game plan

Russell's meters are good. And that's once he's had to run to the other side of the pitch to gather the ball because he was stood in the wrong place. Imagine how many sets we would start on our own 40 or on the half way if he was stood in the right pace?

The fact he stands a good 40m behind the line on the second tackle makes be nervous. A good cleaver half back playing in a team with confidence (i.e. Cas, Hull even Wigan and Saints to an extent) could chip a defence and run riot with that.

Out of dummy half he's good, ill give him that. But I don't see why we are constantly trying to accommodate a player who can only do two things. Scoot and run.

Its an over-simplification (and exaggeration), but we are playing Russell because we only have one prop that can make decent yardage and Russell gets us back up field with his scoots. Against smaller packs its not a problem. Against the bigger ones, particularly where they have halves that have a kicking game, we struggle.

This is the problem. Whilst we insist on playing a prop with the 21st worst average gain in the team we will always have a yardage problem.

What is our yardage problem, that we measure it in metres?

Wigan have made second most metres with less than 4,000 more than lowest ranked Wakefield yet Warrington who lead the way with well over 2,000 more than Wigan. We are way out in front in metres made. If we have a problem what does that say about all the other teams. Perhaps it's because we haven't had to play against the meanest defence in the league.

As for the prop then his average is consistent with or slightly better than Manu from Hull; Flower, Sutton and O'Loughlin from Wigan; Lynch and Millington at Cas; Mounis and Elima from Catalans; Huby at Hudds; and Cuthbertson and Singleton at Leeds however Sims overall metres made is considerably greater than all those listed above.

Sometimes I struggle to understand what people want. At least this message board is busier this week after the loss to Saints than it was the week after we won the semi to get to Wembley. Work that one out.

The assertion was that we only have one prop (that we play as Cox is decent too) that makes decent yardage.
I too believe we struggle to make yardage with our pack. Without Hill being the top meter maker IN THE LEAGUE we would be well and truly shown up. I make no comment on the yardage or gains of the backs or halves.

Manu is the 19th AG of Hull, O'Loughlin is a LF, the others are not Top 4 sides. Let's do some more meaningful comparisons.

Iafeta Palea'aesina 8.62
Mitchell Garrett 8.4
Scott Taylor 8.31
Chris Hill 8.17
Junior Moors 8.16
Alex Walmsley 7.7

Whilst ...

Ashton Sims 6.68

Sims is not my cup of tea as a forward I am afraid, especially as we have been spoilt with the likes of Morley, Carvell, Hill, Wood, Cooper etc. Yes he offloads. and occasionally they connect, but I cannot see that Wigan, Hull, Saints, Leeds would either be troubled by him or want to sign him. You, and those close to you, must think he is the best thing since sliced bread. That's fine, we can disagree.

As for struggling what people want, this is a forum for posting opinions and discussion. Some of which may differ from yours. I think it's completely fair game to discuss things like 1) the omission of our heralded big name signing winger. 2) the omission of a crowd favourite winger. 3) The persistence in playing players out of position 4) Where Ratchford should play. 5) Our on/off form and consistency 6) Lack of prop forwards as well as saying how wonderful it is we beat Oldham, Widnes and Wakefield to get to Wembley. But if this forum, and your fellow fans cause you such consternation, you may be better not coming on here for enjoyment. It always seems that you hold fellow posters in contempt.

Sometimes you don't need a prop who drives an extra two metres with three men on his back at snails pace while the opposition's defence gets set. You need someone to drop quickly and get a quick ptb.

Shame there isn't a stat on average time to ptb.

My criticism of Sims isn't that he doesn't drive forward much in contact, it's that he never breaks a tackle.

Morley, Hill, Wood ,Carvell & Cooper. Sadly, there is very little in the form of replacement English props in today's league of the same calibre as any of the above & let's be honest the weekly enjoyment on this forum ,at the time these players were on our books, was slagging them off apart from Moz & Hill. Even our great hope for next season ,Cooper, was a figure to be slated most weeks.